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Second Arachnid War: Although they were thought to have utterly perished in ISW4, some surviving Bugs tried to revive their former empire eighty years after that conflict ended. Early discovery by the Reformation Group (a Fringe world polity) halted their efforts only after the Pan-Sentient Union sent major fleets to bomb them into oblivion. Revelation of the uber-tech and crab-like Tolat race took place during this conflict, which lasted four years.

How big would the new arachnid empire be? They would have to be paranoid about running into their old 'friends', but they still would want to expand.

Who would the allies be? The Pan Sentient Union, (At this point functionally separate navies, the KON/GSN and TFN), Crucian Union and Zarkolyan fleets, Ophiuchi OADCN, Terran Republican Navy, and Rim Republic Navy. Toss in the Thebeans for chuckles, as according to the Insurrection pack they're back in the game. Everyone mentioned hates bugs, but how much could/would each navy commit

What tech would everyone have? The TRN and RRN would have the newest stuff, but others have their specialties.

How much would the Arachnids change their design philosophies? I can't see them trying to build another slow steamroller navy when they now know that there are forces out there they just can't roll over. OTOH, they do/did like specialized sub-fleets.

I now roll the ball to someone else.

TAG: As I understand it, he sought to avoid turning one-point-six trillion Terran sophonts into undead, war-mongering super-soldiers.Captain Tagon: It it wrong for me to think that would be pretty cool to watch?

Let me pick up this one, since the Canon History is the province of Cosmic Starfire, and the Lead Designer, as well as chief cook and bottlewasher for Cosmic.

Let me address a number of points...

First of all, the site that you linked belongs to a friend of mine who has his own, completely unofficial future history for the Alliance races post-Insurrection that includes the events listed on that page. However, it should be understood very clearly that his vision is entirely unofficial and does not represent the direction that I hope to go. None of the new races and new polities mentioned in his unofficial history should be considered official.

Secondly, there is no "Crucian Union". Never has been, never will be. The correct name is "The Star Union". Not the "Crucian Union". Not the "Star Union of Crucis". (The Star Union of Crucis name is the "incorrect" name used by the Federation because they don't understand that just because the Crucians are the de facto leaders of the Star Union, that doesn't mean that the Crucians wanted their racial name appended to the name of their star nation.) The Star Union. The "Crucian Union" is the name my friend insists on using for the Star Union, even when I tell him repeatedly that it is not the correct name. And given that I am the original Creator of the Star Union, I think that I know what its proper name is.

(( Club, please note that that the previous paragraph's tone was NOT directed at you... This entire "Crucian Union" thing is a sore subject for me. ))

Third, as for the role of the Arachnids and their "World which must be Hidden" in the future of the Canon History, I have no current plans involving them, post-ISW4. That's not to say that they won't be used. Just that I have no plans at this time to do so.

You have to consider this... The Arachnids' single remaining world was probably only a Small population, maybe likely a Medium population by the time they cut off all contact with it. And even assuming some rather prodigious population growth rates for the Bugs, it's unlikely that they'd be large enough to pose a serious risk to the star nations of the Grand Alliance for a number of centuries. Oh, I suppose that with some extreme growth, these Hidden Bugs could pose a risk to any unsuspecting lesser races they might encounter if they explored away from the space of the Grand Alliance. (And who knows where this "hidden system" may be or where any WP's connected to it may lead to?)

Would the Bugs change their design philosophy? IMHO, yes, they would. Oh, the Hidden World might start with a small-ish defense fleet of ISW4 era designs, but I believe that over time, they would understand the failure of their fleet's designs and would adapt to new, (hopefully) more effective designs. The Bugs may be slow to adapt to things like this. But in this instance, they will have had plenty of time to think about their fleet's design failings.

As to what future Bug designs might look like, I cannot say. I can only say that they will try not to make the same mistakes that they made in ISW4.

EDIT: Let me add that certain future plans I have may make any thoughts of a future Arachnid war with the Grand Alliance ... rather academic. (he says mysteriously...)

I’m fairly sure that wasn’t the first time I saw some of this though. Don’t know where else though. I figured it was covered in Alkelda Dawn

I knew that I didn’t have the true, official name for the star union even as I entered it. OTOH, I expected everyone here to know what I meant, and figured that was good enough. Sorry to accidentally hit one of your buttons, will attempt to avoid doing so in the future.

I have to question whether the AON posed an OVERWEALMING threat to the grand alliance the first time around. They had a lot of factors stacked up against them, and didn’t overcome them fast enough. War two they wouldn’t even be a strategic threat, just a problem to take care of. But the earlier scenarios might be blowouts for the bugs, as in the first war.

Sorta wanted to argue about this in ultra. I’m sure cosmic will be a great product, but it doesn’t exist yet, making arguing about some of the technical details (Ship design philosophy, operational level tactics) somewhat difficult as of yet.

The new ultra history doesn’t have much depth yet; hard to build anything off of it. And I have a couple issues with the alternate history.

TAG: As I understand it, he sought to avoid turning one-point-six trillion Terran sophonts into undead, war-mongering super-soldiers.Captain Tagon: It it wrong for me to think that would be pretty cool to watch?

Club wrote:I knew that I didn’t have the true, official name for the star union even as I entered it. OTOH, I expected everyone here to know what I meant, and figured that was good enough. Sorry to accidentally hit one of your buttons, will attempt to avoid doing so in the future.

Don't worry about it, Club. I wasn't venting at you at all.

I have to question whether the AON posed an OVERWHELMING threat to the grand alliance the first time around. They had a lot of factors stacked up against them, and didn’t overcome them fast enough. War two they wouldn’t even be a strategic threat, just a problem to take care of. But the earlier scenarios might be blowouts for the bugs, as in the first war.

From an after the fact perspective, it's easy to think that the Bugs really didn't post an overwhelming threat to the Alliance in ISW4. However, if you look at it more in the moment, without the knowing what the Bug empire really looked like, etc., they were a very scary threat to the "people" facing them. After all, the Bugs were throwing vast fleets of ships at the Alliance with little regard for losses. The "people" looking at this had to wonder what sort of enemy could sustain such losses, and wonder just how large the Bug empire might actually be.

I agree that in a possible second war, if the Bugs being faced were simply descendants of the Hidden world Bugs, it seems less likely that the Alliance would wonder about whether they were facing some vast empire empire of Bugs with endless supplies of ships and personnel. They'd probably realize that they were fighting a dangerous, but limited foe.

Sorta wanted to argue about this in ultra. I’m sure cosmic will be a great product, but it doesn’t exist yet, making arguing about some of the technical details (Ship design philosophy, operational level tactics) somewhat difficult as of yet.

Feel free to talk about various things, though think in 3e terms for technology.

The new ultra history doesn’t have much depth yet; hard to build anything off of it. And I have a couple issues with the alternate history.

Well, if you have issues with Ultra's "alternate history", feel free to talk about them in the Ultra forum. I'm sure that Cralis would be more than willing to listen. If you were talking about the alternate history in that link you included in your original post, feel free to discuss them here.

In regards to Damon's future history stuff, not very much of it is original. He steals from many sources, both Starfire and non-Starfire. He is very bad about citing sources. And please don't take this as a slam against Damon, he's a good guy, he just needs to be better about citing where he's pulling things from.

That said, I think some of the familiar stuff is coming from various author notes and the Nexus magazines. And quite a lot is pulled from the GURPS Transhumans Space books.

i think some of the ideas he puts up are interesting and might make for some interesting scenario packs. And if not his stuff, I'd still love to see more scenario packs. I'm a big strategy gamer but I really enjoy just playing, and reading, short connected scenarios that represent something interesting in the game "history".

One of these days I need to finish my scenario pack. It might fit into Cosmic but ATM I'd have to do it under Ultra even though it's during ISW4.

Hello and HOWDY! Wow, thanks for the positive comments about my previous work with Starfire. I will give an update and some new info:

About 8 years ago I dropped off the radar. I became critically ill with lymphoma, a type of cancer. It was near impossible for me to write during this time. Two years ago I died during one of my chemo sessions; obviously they got me back but it was hairy for my mother, aunt, uncle, and grandfather who were visiting at the time. I was only dead a couple of minutes, ha ha ha. In the fall of 2015 (October) I had serious heart and lung surgery, and am still recovering (I still have a hole in my heart, EEK). So I have been busy for awhile and am glad to come back and do some stuff.

I would like to address some issues with my work, mainly the Skymarshal magazines. In regards to the credit thing; I rarely gave credit where credit was due, mainly because I didn't think anyone was actually reading what I wrote in Skymarshal! I did it soley as a HOBBY, not for any other reason. Since I almost never got any feedback during that time from readers, I was pretty sure it was all in vain. In addition, I was stupidly lazy. When I found something I really really liked, I put it into Skymarshal, not to steal it but to HIGHLIGHT how great it was. Finding cool stuff across a myriad of Starfure websites was always difficult for me, so I saw myself as an aggregator of cool new Starfire stuff. BTW, I never took credit for ALL of the stuff in Skymarshal, and in reality about 80% of it was original works of mine or collaborations with other Starfire fans. I am grateful to several people in helping me with Skymarshal, including Fred Burton and Todd Kes, who was indispensible as my editor. I do apologize to anyone who was offended by my work. I will do better

I still produce an ENORMOUS amount of work, having a dozen new stories or ideas in my head every day. Sadly I haven't had the energy to do much with it all, except throw up some of the better stuff on my homepage. And yes I beg, borrow, and steal ideas; the work others do inspires me, and I often think of ways a story or idea could have been done better, and then do so!

FInally, I remain a huge fan of Starfire and am glad Marvin Lamb has continued it. Its also great to see some old Starfire hands helping him as well. I was always a enormous fan of the works of Steve Walmsley (the Rigelian Campaign), Kurt's Phoenix Campaign, and of course nearly anything that Fred Burton produced.

Its also just amazing to see the work on Starfire that Mr. Gannon is doing! It was very painful to read Exodus, but everything since then is just fabulous! Its just incredible to watch Gannon take Starfire in a new direction, and do it very very well indeed. I do have to laugh, however.....everyone screamed bloody murder when I destroyed New Valkha and Terra in my "Armageddon War" ideas and put a big "NO" on it, but Gannon then did it and wiped out whole stars and star systems too boot. Talk about bloody!

Its good to see you all again. Hopefully I will have the energy to put up all my former materials on my website, including a ton of newish stuff that I didn't get around to publishing. Thanks again for the kind words. Lets look forward to exciting things SDS. Cheers, Damon

Holy crap! Talk about a voice from the grave! I must confess, several years ago you came up in a conversation between me and Fred Burton, and since nobody had heard from you, we feared the worst.

It's good to hear that you are still kicking death in the front teeth.

Oh and btw, don't forget that the new Starfire books are co-written by Steve White! He's actually the one who secured permission from David Weber to continue writing the novels and came up with the Arduan story line. If you haven't seen it, we have a Q&A from Steve and Charles in the official classic starfire section of our fiction forum.

Also, I don't know if you are interested or not, but we can create for you a sub-forum where you can post Starfire stories. And if you'd like, I can put a link to the Starfire section of your website in our fan website link forum.